It's been a few months since my brain hemorrhage and I've finally stopped feeling like all of my blood vessels are made of glass.

More or less. I mean, I still imagine them all as a cluster of dried and crusty rubber bands from time to time, but, for the most part, my constant anxiety over springing another leak in my head has subsided. There's still a subtle underlying buzz of apprehension, but isn't there always?

Despite everything, or more likely because of it, I have been devoting much of what can best be described as my new lease on life toward finishing up a major rewrite of my latest novel. Soon I will begin the humiliating challenge of shopping it around (again) to a slew of major and minor players in, what Terry Southern liked to call, "the quality lit game."

What does that mean. exactly? Well, for starters, it means another writer's conference. Except, unlike last year, where I took part in the literary speed-dating construct known as Pitch Slam — cramming as many three minute agent pitches into an hour-long session as was humanly possible— this time (at a different conference) I am going to be sitting with just one agent who will have read the first 15 pages of my book ahead of time and (hopefully) provide me with some useful feedback. How much useful feedback can be squeezed into a fifteen minute meeting? We'll see.. I'm already second guessing the whole idea. But, from what I hear, that's part of the process, too.

For one thing, if you happen to have a phone with you, you might be tempted to use it to look up "Subarachnoid Brain Hemorrhage" a day after having just suffered one. As it was, I read exactly one and a half sentences before deciding the "no cellphone" policy was a good one and tucking mine away. Even now, two and a half weeks after what's come to be called "the event" and a week after my release from the hospital, I'm still not keen to read about it.

"Do you have a phobia of the dentist?" one of the nurses asked, searching for clues as to what might have caused my brain to start bleeding while sitting in a dentist's chair. She thought maybe my blood pressure had spiked.

I had to think about it. Did I have a phobia of the dentist? No, not really. But I had to admit: "I do now." I could feel my blood pressure rise as I thought about returning to the dentist to have him finish the work he started. "No rush," I said, attempting to calm myself.

My dentist is in New Jersey —recommended to me by my sister. His office is about an hour and a half south of my apartment in Brooklyn, which isn't terribly convenient, I have to admit. The drive back and forth from Brooklyn can easily eat up a good four hours. In order to make it worth while, after my appointment I generally try to squeeze in a visit with my mom and dad, who live about 20 minutes further down the Parkway. However, since this particular appointment had been scheduled for late in the afternoon, there wouln't be time for any of that. I planned to just whiz down the Parkway, get my tooth fixed, and zip on home.

One of my molars had chipped and broken — most likely due to incessant nightly grinding ‚ and I was getting a crown. It is a two step procedure, and I was there for part two. It didn't take very long, twenty minutes, maybe, and the dentist was putting on the finishing touches, making sure my bite was aligned, and so on.. Another five minutes and he probably would have been done, but I had to stop him. "I feel really weird," I said, "I better test my blood sugar."

As a Type 1 diabetic, it's not unusual for me to interrupt something at an inopportune time in order to make sure my blood sugar isn't dropping. I felt so strange that it seemed like a good guess, but my blood sugar was fine. I tested again, just to be sure. It wasn't low at all. In fact, it was slightly elevated. Nothing too extreme, however. Nothing to cause me to feel so bizarre, anyway. Suddenly, my head began to throb like a kick in the head. As I lay back in the dentist's chair. I began to feel numb, as if the Novocain had travelled through my entire body. Then, out of nowhere, I began to vomit — all over the poor dental assistant. I tried to sit up, but I couldn't move my legs. Everything closed around me as if I were walking backward through a grey-green tunnel. A neon crystalline pattern crossed my vision in a psychedelic swirl. "What's happening?" I said. I thought I was dying. Who wants to die in a dentist's chair? Who wants to die at all?

i couldn't see him, but I heard the dentist over my shoulder: "What do you need? Has anything like this had ever happened to you before?" He wasn't sure what to do.

"No," I said. "I have no idea what's happening. Please call 911." I struggled to stay conscious, fearing that if I let go, I'd never come back. I thought about my wife, Deborah. I didn't want to leave her behind.

The dental assistant ran her hand through my hair, trying to comfort me. I remember it felt nice. From there, the world became a blur.

In retrospect, there are worse places to have a brain hemorrhage than a dentist's chair. The parking lot, for instance, or while cruising along the Garden State Parkway. Just about anywhere, really.

The EMTs arrived, got me on a stretcher and into an ambulance, and took me for a short drive to the nearest hospital, but I only remember vague, gray snippets. An EMT saying, "Hang in there buddy, we're going to take care of you." Another one asking questions like, "Do you know what year it is?" My eyes felt cramped and seemed to be pointed in different directions. Nothing was making sense.

In retrospect, there are worse places to have a brain hemorrhage than a dentist's chair. The parking lot, for instance, or while cruising along the Garden State Parkway. Just about anywhere, really.

The dentist phoned Deborah, who was listed as my emergency contact. He couldn't offer her much info about what was wrong with me, but he did know which hospital I was headed to. He told her I was having seizures, but I'll have to take his word for it. Deborah had no way to get to the hospital so she called my mom and dad, who rushed as fast as they could (which generally isn't very fast) to the hospital. Apparently, they were there for several hours, but I have no recollection of seeing them, other than a vague memory of hearing my mother's voice say, "Ooh, those are nice boots," as they pulled off my shoes and put them into a plastic bag, along with the rest of my personal belongings. I don't recall getting a Ct scan, I don't remember having a catheter poked through a vessel in my groin, snaked up into my brain in order to squirt dye and take pictures.

Eventually things came back into focus, like waking from a dream that you don't remember, and I felt totally fine —at first, that is — and I imagined getting out of the hospital the next day, if not sooner. I found my phone and called Deborah, who later told me I wasn't quite as clear headed as I thought I was. I kept asking her what day it was and whether my parents had been there to see me. "I can sort of remember them being here, but I don't know if it was a dream or not." She assured me that my parents had, in fact, been there, and that it was Friday — roughly 24 hours after the event. She also told me that, after my mom and dad spent the day with me, they went home, exhausted, only to both become ill themselves — food poisoning, it seemed, or maybe a stomach virus. While rushing to the bathroom, my mother had taken a fall and wound up in the Emergency Room, too. A different hospital or we might have been roommates.

In the meantime, Deborah arranged to get a ride to New Jersey from our friend Jason. They drove first to get my truck, which had been left at the dentist's office, and then caravanned to the hospital. By the time they arrived to see me, it was Saturday and my optimism about an early release had started to wane. I had a dull headache, felt nauseated, and utterly beat up. "You're going to feel that way for a while," the neurologist had said. "You had a pretty serious thing happen to you." But I was alive, at least, which gave me a certain feeling of gratitude, but three or four days of headaches and nausea has a way of diminishing a person's spirits.

One night, as the nurses changed shifts, the nurse who had been there when I was admitted came on duty again. He asked me my name, where I was, what year it was, who was president. I hesitated at that last question, thinking perhaps Trump was a dream, but no, I got everything right. "Much better than when they first brought you in," he said. "You thought you were in Brooklyn, then Canada. You said it was 1948, 1977. You were all over the place."

Like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughter House Five, Jamie Boud has become unstuck in time.

I didn't remember providing answers so wildly off base and found it disturbing. I chalked it up to having been sedated for my tests. Although I wasn't 100 percent sure I had been, it was hard to imagine having a catheter in my brain any other way.

While my mother remained in the hospital, Deborah stayed with my father, who was still feeling pretty wiped out from his own illness. Deborah had only recently gotten her driver's license, but braved the New Jersey traffic to visit me every day — a half hour in each direction from my parent's place. Lots of practice!

Meanwhile, I had an ultrasound performed on my head three days in a row, and another Ct scan and, after five days in the I.C.U., the neurologist was confident enough to move me to the neurology ward on the fourth floor where I roomed with a 92 year old WWII vet who entertained me with stories of train trips across America. I had trouble following along. "Sorry I'm not much company," I said. He didn't care.

Once I'd been moved out of the ICU, and was on the mend, Deborah headed back to Brooklyn to get some work done and care for our two cats. They say that anxious people tend to do well in a real emergency — they are in their element — but once Deborah arrived home, and everything had a chance to sink in, Deborah suffered a mini nervous breakdown. I could hear the strain in her voice when we spoke, as if her chest were bound with twine, the muscles in her neck like pieces of wood. I tried to reassure her I was fine, but the less she had to worry about in the moment, the more time she had time to reflect on what happened and what a close call it had been. She felt helpless.

As I got better, I had an anxiety attack, too. I woke in the middle of the night with flashbacks I saw patterns of light and felt like I couldn't move. I struggled to reach the nurse's call button. When the nurse arrived, she gave me a few simple tests — had me touch my nose, read a few sentences from a card and so on. "Everything seems fine. Do you suffer from anxiety?" she asked me.

"I guess I do," I said, as I tugged at my gown, soaked with sweat. After all, the whole saga had started in the dentist's chair, where I was having a tooth fixed. It had broken in two due to repeatedly gnashing my teeth at night like a rabid wolverine. Suffer from anxiety? Yeah, I suppose I do.

After a couple days in the neurology ward, the doctor figured I was ready for release. "You look worried," he said.

"Well, aside from spending the entire week in bed, I haven't had a chance to think about everything. I guess I feel a little overwhelmed."

"Listen, when something like this happens to someone, yours is the kind of outcome you want to see. Your tests all look good. Better than good. We'll schedule a follow up in a week or two, but I really don't think you have anything to worry about."

The plan was for me to recuperate at my mom and dad's house for a few days. Deborah was back in Brooklyn and my father was still feeling a little weak from his illness — and was also taking care of my mother who had finally been released from the hospital herself — so I arranged for the hospital to call me a cab. "They're running behind," the nurse told me, "they'll be here at four o'clock."

At three thirty, a volunteer rolled a wheelchair into my room to take me to the front door. "I have a lot of stuff," I said.

"Not too much, I hope. I can't carry anything for you."

"I'll just pile everything in my lap, but I don't want to rush, I don't want to forget anything."

The volunteer was irritated and impatient. He kept telling me to call the cab company as we waited. "They said they'd be here at four," I said. "It's only ten 'till."

"Well I can't wait around."

I asked him how he got involved in volunteering. He obviously wasn't happy doing it.

"When I retired, my wife told me I should do some volunteer work. I told her she should do volunteer work. Anyway, I've been doing it for six years now and I'm over it. Any monkey can work for free."

I told him he should quit. He wasn't doing anyone any favors.

He pawned me off on another volunteer, a Vietnam vet from Hawaii who pulled up a wheelchair next to me and was happy to just hang out and shoot the shit. "Take it easy," he advised me. "Trust me. When I got back from Vietnam, I tried to do too much too soon. I felt like I had so much catching up to do. Take it slow."

When the cab finally arrived, it was a rolling ashtray. There was another passenger already inside so I sat in the front seat.

The woman in the backseat had just been released from the Emergency Room after a domestic dispute with her mother. The cabbie was supposed to drop her off at the police station, but she wanted to go to her mother's place, instead. They compromised and she got out at the library, across the street from the police station. The cabbie explained the situation to me saying, "I figured you were curious." But I really wasn't. I just wanted to breathe some fresh air, lie down, and go to sleep. When I finally got to my parent's house, I ate a little, and did just that. I slept most of the following day, too. But after a few days, something turned south and I began to get sick. Whether it was related to my brain hemorrhage was hard to say, but when I couldn't quit vomiting gallons of brown acid, my mother made an executive decision and called an ambulance. Only three and a half days after being released, I was back in the ER.

I had my head scanned again, but there didn't seem to be any problems there. They gave my gut an ultrasound scan and discovered "numerous gall stones" but didn't think they were responsible for my symptoms. A stomach virus? Maybe. I had a slight fever. My blood sugar was a little out of whack, but vomiting will do that. In the end there was no definitive answer, but after another 24 hours in the hospital, I stabilized and began to feel pretty good. Weak and stiff, but hungry.

Before anything else had a chance to go wrong, I made plans with my friend Brian to get me home. He took a bus from NYC in order to drive me to Brooklyn using my truck. He arrived on Friday night and we left bright and early Saturday morning.

And here I am, now. Home. Feeling better every day and hugging my wife every chance I get.

The subway was already crowded when it pulled into Union Square to absorb even more grumpy and impatient zombies.

I was mushed between a guy lost in a game of Candy Crush and another watching wrestling videos when, as the subway doors closed behind her, a young woman shimmied through the crowd and managed to make room beside me. She was only about five foot two and could barely reach the bar above our heads. She was wearing short shorts, knee-high socks, and an oversized sweatshirt. Lots of jewelry, too. I counted the rings—ten on the hand holding the pole. Beneath a tangle of bracelets, a swirly calligraphic tattoo circled her wrist. Despite a few people standing between them, she began muttering to a guy who had boarded the train behind her—a big black guy, with a goatee and long leather coat who stood leaning against the doors stoically like a bouncer, as if he was waiting to check the guest list at the next stop. When he didn't respond, the girl mumbled louder—if there is such a thing as a loud mumble, maybe slurred and sloppy is a better way to put it. The guy looked at her, put a finger to his lips, and let out a slow and calming shhh.

The girl spun around on her tip toes and began mumbling over her shoulder to someone behind her—it was hard to tell who, exactly since everyone was ignoring her. When she turned around again, I caught the smell of alcohol-infused sweat wafting from her pores. She got quiet and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up and over her head, stretching it as far as the fabric would allow. Head down, barely holding the bar with her fingertips, she bumped and leaned into me as the train lurched into and away from each station stop. After the last stop in Manhattan, the train picked up speed, careening under the East river toward Brooklyn.

The train soon settled into a steady rhythm like a Johnny Cash song and the girl weaved and bumped, slightly out of sync with it. My arm was raised, holding the pole, and the girl began to nuzzle her head into the space just below my armpit. I shuffled away as much as could, though there was very little room to move. She straitened up, but only momentarily. Soon she tried to nuzzle again, and again I leaned away. "Ladies and gentlement, a crowded subway train is no excuse for sexual misconduct . . ." as the public service announcement on the P.A. system had just announced.

Finally she looked up at me through a set of false eyelashes hanging on for dear life. "Can I lean on you?" she said.

"You already are," I wanted to say, but just gave her an awkward smile, instead.

"I'm so wasted," she said through lipstick stained teeth.

She certainly was.

"Are you on your way home?" I asked. I was only 6 P.M. but she had the look of someone who'd been out since the night before and was caught taking a subway ride of shame.

"No, I'm going to Bushwick," she said.

I had a lot of questions: What's in Bushwick? Was she going alone? Didn't she think she'd be better off going home to bed?

"I'll be okay," she said. "I just need to lie down. Can I lean on you?"

Although I felt sorry for her and didn't really see the harm, the train pulled into the next station before I could give her an answer.

"This is my stop," I said. She tugged on the sleeve of my coat as I squeezed around her—a soft and comfortable fiberfill coat that makes an excellent pillow. I use it that way myself from time to time.

"Bye," I said. "Be careful out there."

She looked sad to see her pillow go.

Stepping out the door and onto the platform, I passed a guy boarding the train wearing a puffy down coat. Like mine only puffier. A veritable man in a pillow suit.

I was tempted to get back on the train and watch what happened next, but I waste enough time as it is.

I don’t know why. My personal inclination is to find a seat as far away from any other passenger as possible and when I got on the bus the other day, I did exactly that — I walked past a half dozen people sitting in the first few rows and took a seat in the very back.

The bus continued along its route and a few more people got on, each of them sitting in one of the many empty seats still available in front.

A couple of stops later, the bus picked up a single passenger — a heavyset guy, probably in his late-twenties or early thirties — wearing what looked like work clothes: Navy-blue Dickie’s chinos and a long sleeved navy blue work shirt. They were filthy, but it was hard to tell if the dirt was fresh or permanently ground in. Despite the work attire, he was carrying a basketball, which, much like his clothes, was covered with greasy handprints. As the bus pulled away and lurched into traffic, the guy ping-ponged down the aisle, bouncing against the shoulders of the other passengers, leaving a swath of irritation in his wake.

When he reached the final row, he pointed at the window seat next to me and said he wanted to sit there. I stood up and let him squeeze past. When I sat down again, I left an empty seat between us. “You can sit here,” he said, tapping at where I had been sitting.

I shrugged and told him, no worries, I’d be getting off soon. I saw no reason not to leave us each a little breathing room. In fact, I thought about moving to an entirely different row.

He seemed insulted that I didn’t want to sit next to him. He's going to have to get used to that.

“You got something sticking out of your ear,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s a hearing aid.”

“Hearing aid? What are you part deaf?”

“Yeah, part.”

He looked out the window briefly, then back at me.

“Are you French or something?”

At first I thought the two things were related — that he thought I was French because i was wearing hearing aids — but I realized it was a total non sequitur and that he was just making conversation. It was funny either way and I laughed.

“French?" I said. "No. Why did you think I was French?”

“I dunno, you look like a French dude. What are you from California or some shit?”

I went from being mildly amused to utterly insulted. “California?”

I laughed again, which seemed to embarrass him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re not from New York.”

“Yeah I am.”

He seemed unconvinced. Although I wasn’t born here, I’ve lived in New York long enough that I didn’t feel a need to elaborate. In any case, I’m not from France or California, or any other place he was likely to guess.

“What do you think of the Heros moving to New York?” he said.

At least I think that’s what he said. I really had no idea what he was talking about.

“The what?”

“The Heros,” he said. Or he might have said Zeros. Or maybe something else entirely.

I asked him to repeat himself one more time, but still couldn’t figure out what he was saying. If it was a test of my New Yorker-ness, I failed. I pointed to my hearing aids and said in my defense, “My ears aren’t very good.”

He mumbled something. Intentionally mumbled from what I could tell.

He looked out the window again before turning to me and holding out his fist for a fist bump. I gave him one.

I don't know why he was inspired to share a fist bump, but I know why I was: Not only are my hearing aids allowing me to engage in random conversations again, they are actually provoking them.

Last weekend, Deborah and I went to Cuddlebackville to watch some friends race at the Oakland Valley Race Park.

As we made our way through the pits to the stands, Deborah spotted Jason and called to him.

Jason approached dressed in quintessential American biker gear: a pair of torn Levis held up by a thick, leather belt and big, brass, buckle, a classic Schott black leather motorcycle jacket, a well-worn Jim Beam baseball cap, and . . . wait . . . what's he have on his feet? Are those Crocs?

His right hand was clenching a hot dog dripping sauerkraut juice, his left was wrapped around the handle of a cane. He slung the cane over his forearm and shook my hand.

The last time I had seen Jason — a few moths prior — he was just about fiully recovered from an off-road motorcycle accident that had shattered his foot. The shards had been pieced together with an Erector Set's worth of screws, pins, and plates, and, after a few moths of physical therapy, he was as good as new. Or at least he had been.

"What the hell happened to you?" I said.

The flat track races were well underway and the roar of muffler-free racing pipes made it hard to hear, but he was obviously expecting the question.

The story he told was very similar to the one he told me last year — an off-road motorcycle ride along a rocky trail, a fall, a trip to the emergency room, and so on.

"Is it the same foot as last time?"

"Yeah."

I suggested his previous accident had probably compromised his foot's integrity leaving it prone to further injury, but he didn't think so. Since his foot is mostly titanium now maybe he was right. Regardless, despite all the hardware, he still has some bone in there somewhere and his latest tumble caused a small piece of it to chip off. Not a big enough piece to warrant surgery, or even a cast — just a pair of Crocs and a cane.

"It's not too bad," he said with a shrug and then, diverting attention away from his poor, abused foot, he asked what was new with me.

"I'm getting hearing aids on Monday," I said.

"What's that?" he asked over the cacophony of vintage race bikes screaming full-bore around the track.

I chuckled at the irony. Rather than yell, I waited for the race to finish. The announcer's voice crackled unintelligibly through the loudspeaker and the racers rode their machines back to the pits. A new batch of riders lined up for the next race. In the small window of relative quiet, I repeated myself: "I'm getting hearing aids."

I've known Jason long enough, and complained about my hearing difficulties often enough, that he wasn't surprised, nevertheless, I followed up with the obvious: "I have trouble hearing."

Several years ago, I went to an audiologist who told me that a notch in my hearing spectrum was responsible for the difficulties I experienced understanding speech, especially in crowded places like restaurants and bars. "There's a dip in the midrange, right around the frequency of the human voice," the audiologist said at the time, "It's not too bad, but you should get it checked periodically in case it gets worse."

Now, several years later, I felt it had indeed gotten worse and decided it was time for another checkup. The tests confirmed it. Not only are the midrange frequencies a problem, but the high end is compromised, now, too. The audiologist could only speculate on the cause. Injury from years of playing guitar in a rock and roll band? Nerve damage or circulation problems, due to type 1 diabetes? Perhaps a combination of everything.

"I can't tell you, exactly, but I can tell you that you should consider hearing aids. I think you'll find it will improve your quality of life."

A symphony of whine and clatter, along with plumes of dusty red dirt, filled the air again. The next race was in full swing.